Jan 25, 2014

Here are some characters I made for the game, it was still at an early stage of development so nothing was set in stone yet, but the idea was to define the visual differences of the RN groups of racers and their correspondent attitudes.

The great thing about working at a small studio is that you have to help in any ways possible, while I was doing some illustrations and taking care of the visual direction, it was also necessary to help on the texture side (modeling and shaders > Gab). So the whole art team had to skin some cars and helmets, which was really fun and creative, some of mine below as well as some logos.

Jan 15, 2014

I just had a discussion with a friend and ex-Trapdoor guy and it ended up being very nostalgic, we had a great time over-there and the opportunity to try multiple genres, on different platforms. Here is the first part of a larger dump of illustrations/works done for an Ipad game we were working on after cancelling Heist. It was a retro-Sci-Fi asynchronous arcade-racing game with very tight controls, stunts and flames... it was also super addictive and supposed to be free-to-play. Mmmmehh too bad we couldn't release it! The cool 3D environments and level art below were mainly done by the art team and Yan Mongrain!

Some environment speedpainting researches done for the background of the interactive 3D menu selection.

The idea was to base our 1st models on classic cars such as the Shelby Cobra and the F1 Ferrari 1967 because we wanted to bring back the feeling of raw danger of competing in that era and let's face it, we love their shapes. So our futuristic world was about an underground extreme competition of nostalgic racers wanting to feel the engines, open cockpit, smoke and madness of the past. Research paintovers below.

Jan 11, 2014

Yesss I do like the Surface pro 2! Because it is a great tablet PC and its form factor is really practical, here is a speedie live portrait done in Sketchbook Pro just a few minutes ago at a café in Montreal. The Surface came with us in our recent road trips and we both loved it for surfing and blogging but I didn't spend any time drawing or painting, which was my initial reason to get it. I'll post some more images very soon but what I can say is that the Bamboo Stylus Feel is a nice addition and the tablet works really well.

Café speedpainting tests using the Wacom Bamboo Feel pen

The main advantages of a tablet PC over the traditional laptop + graphic tablet configuration is its versatility and ergonomic (and definitely footprint), you can handle it the way you want much like you do with a classic sketchbook, it's small and easy to use. With its integrated kickstand and added keyboard it is a breeze to use the Surface Pro and it was very comfortable in the position you see above, allowing me to use the shortcuts while painting. Yup, even if Sketchbook Pro's interfacehas been perfectly optimized for touch screens it's still faster with a keyboard, btw this is a great software and I highly recommend it! Reminds me so much of traditional medias.